[Shawn Alyasiri]

Thanks for your suggestions Barry. I gave this a try, and I’m still having some difficulties. Perhaps I missed a setting somewhere.

I used a P2 folder created by an Edius timeline of some DVCPRO 1080 60i clips (short clips dissolved together). I sent that into Raylight demo, and imported in a Vegas 7 1920×1080 timeline (didn’t see any mention of DVCPROHD). So, I’m essentially placing a 1280×1080 Raylight file into a 1920×1080 Vegas timeline.

I exported with Video Rendering Quality: Best
Frame Size – custom 853×480
Frame Rate: 29.970
Field Order: Upper First
Pixel Aspect – tried 1.0 & 1.212
Video Format: Sorenson 3
Compressed depth: 24 bpp color
Quality: High
Data rate: unconstrained
Keyframe every 30 frames
Audio: Uncompressed, 48k, 16bit, stereo

I tried playing this file back in an Edius SD timeline and I still get a significant amount of tearing. These files are importing into Edius as 854×480 (not 853) & progressive – I don’t see much difference if I change the fields, etc.

I’m not sure if you had intended this for square pixel computer playback, or for exporting to SD DVD (my hope).

I had sent some to Grass Valley, and they had confirmed my findings – without suggestions for resolution. I’d love to get some footage to you as you had mentioned. How may I do that? Will you be at the HD expo in Chicago next week? I plan to go to the expo. Otherwise, perhaps I could mail a DVD of P2 data?

Thanks again for your time and expertise.

[Shawn Alyasiri]

Will it only play back footage from P2 cards?

Is there any way that it can play back footage from a hard drive – either footage that you had previously transfered from card to drive, or footage that you had written to a P2 format folder in Edius?

[Shawn Alyasiri]

Thanks again for your note Barry.

The clip you’ve attached looks incredible…

I’ve had the 2000 for a short time, and was hoping to shoot 1080 60i or 720 60p initially for ‘hyper’ feel and latitude in slowing things down etc. Again – working, editing and viewing in HD looks great. Looking forward to 1080 24/30p & 720 24/30p as well – short tests, similar results.

I’ve been using Edius SP for a number of years now. So I’ve been placing the 2000 footage into the Edius timelines DVCPROHD 108060i or FullHD 1920x1080i. Looks incredible in HD.

If I change the project settings to DV 720×480 or D1 720×486 16×9/4:3, the footage really warbles, edges tear and come alive, moire and pattern dancing, etc. I’ve tried exporting to ProCoder 2 from the timeline, I’ve burned master 1920x1080HQ files and put it in ProCoder that way – etc. Pretty much the same situation.

I also tried some conversions in After Effects 7 – didn’t work that well. I do have Vegas 7 and PremPro2 – haven’t worked with them on this. If Vegas presents solutions/options that you’d recommend, I’d do it.

Actually – any recommendations that you have – I’d take it – believe me. I’ve done dozens of tests (upper field, lower field, etc) trying to make this all happen.

Ultimately, I’d like to edit in Edius SP – make a 1920×1080 Canopus HQ master, and send that into some transcoding mechanism for the best possible SD file I can for SD DVD authoring.

The closest I can get to an SD file that doesn’t tear is feeding the HD YUV output from the breakout box (Canopus doesn’t have HDSDI) into some AJA boxes to downconvert to SD YUV and go to DVCAM. It’s close, but it adds setup to the video, it’s lossy and recompressed, and adds a frame of latency to the stream. Plus – it’s a pretty goofy workflow. There’s something going on in the hardware downconversion that smooths everything out (including the camera’s downconversion output) that I can’t mimic with a software workflow.

Sorry for the length here… Thanks again for your time – anything you can add or assist in resolving will be helping me immensely. I want to shoot as much as I can this year in HD, but be very confident in the ability to provide solid SD DVD’s from that footage as well.

[Shawn Alyasiri]

As I recall, I ran into a similar (if not identical) glitch a few weeks ago with the FS100 v3 and the HPX2000 in 1080 60i. I don’t recall that the audio was affected, but the video was definitely digital garbage. I went to the same place on the P2 footage (I didn’t check the timecode – just found it quickly visually) and the P2 was fine.

FS100 was mounted on the back of the camera (via anton bauer mounting system) with a short 18″ firewire cable. The FS moves with the camera – so there’s no long cable, firewire unplugged scenarios…

Sounds like there may be a ghost in the new FS100 – but overall, my experiences with them have been good overall (including SD recordings with the SPX800).

Give them a call – they answer the phone these days. Please post back with anything you find out.

Thanks very much.

[Shawn Alyasiri]

Thanks again Barry – truly.

Can I ask your opinion if a 1440×1080 or 1920×1080 native Intra file may or would downconvert in a ‘smoother’ fashion than what we may be seeing trying to downconvert DVCPROHD files (either 1280×1080 or 960×720)? Is there truth to the recent explanation I received about the mathematics of pixel scaling, etc? I’ve got 1440 HDV files that seem far more resistant to the tearing that I’m seeing on DVCPROHD downconverts (tearing, moire, pan/tilt warble, etc).

Can you comment if the HPX2000 will be able to record both 50mb 1440 or 1920 100mb 1080 files – and the 50/100 1280×720 720p files, or is that only with the 3000?

The HD images from my HPX2000 are incredible – trying to downconvert them has been a real bear (upconvert to 1920×1080 in Edius also looks great) – it almost looks like I’ll have to do do any SD downconvert work via hardware downconversion via AJA boxes from the Edius system and bring back as DVCAM/DV – That’s definitely a lossy process though.

Any advice/wisdom you can give is enormously appreciated. I’ll be far more apt to try the Intra options once they’re available from Panny and Edius if it could grant that downconversion benefit as well as the other obvious ones…

Thanks again for your wisdom and generosity with your time and advice.

[Shawn Alyasiri]

Thanks Barry. Yes, I would agree, however, I’ve definitely come to enjoy the backup/foreup capabilities of having a 2nd recorder/drive like the FS100 around.

Can you comment on the frame size of the soon-to-come Intra images – I thought I saw at NAB that there were 1440×1080 images being played back (rather than the DVCPROHD 1280×1080). Likewise, is 1920×1080 a 1080 recording option with Intra100 (even in a camera like the 2000), or 1280×720 if you’re in 720 modes?

I’ve been having a heck of a time getting current 1080 (1280×1080) clips from the 2000 to downconvert in Edius without significant tearing/warbling on the edges. It was recently described to me that it’s a scaling/pixel aspect issue and that 1440 (in theory) could lead to less of that. Downconverting Z1/H1 (1440) footage is certainly less ‘tempermental’. It’s been quite frustrating, however, perhaps the Intra options could ‘smooth’ that out compared to the DVCPROHD files?

Thanks again very much.

[Shawn Alyasiri]

I had done some 720 24 tests almost identical to yours as well – also with the FS100 doing 24pN. I agree – it looked very good in both HD24 & SD24 modes. There wasn’t much quicker pulling/panning in those tests, but that would go with respecting 24p shooting anyway. That will be the ‘next phase’ of HD ‘looks’ to offer and subsequent testing as well.

I’m currently trying to get good results with the cam downconverting from 1080 60i or 720 60p – burn a master Canopus HQ file (1920×1080 or 1280×720) for BluRay and send to ProCoder for SD DVD. I’m trying to offer that ‘hyper real’ look with solid slow motion capabilities and ultimately end back on BluRay and/or DVD. I don’t doubt that 720 24/30p will lend to better results – ultimately authing a progressive DVD, closer to the native chipset of the cam, etc.

Sounds like we have very similar setups – I would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you over email or call you if that’s at all possible.

Thanks very much indeed for your post…

[Shawn Alyasiri]

Bumping this again – can anyone please discuss their experiences in downconverting DVCPRO HD footage – even the HVX200? I’d like to focus on the 1080 60i or 720 60p side, but any workflow tips/experiences/observations are greatly appreciated (Edius preferred, but any platform, hardware, flow, considerations, etc).

Edius has been awesome to work with and I don’t see the severity of the warbling/moire, etc when downconverting HDV Z1/H1 footage. Very frustrating to have this nice HPX2000 and ultimately have trouble with SD downconverts…

Any specific advice and observations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.